Classic Poem

Besides there is a time, in early youth,
When in ourselves we wholly live, when we
Ascribe pre-eminence of actual truth,
Pre-eminently give reality
To our own sphere of life—until we see
Things change around us, till our friends fall down
Plucked by the hand of death, as from a tree
The leaves of autumn, till we make our own
The experience of the past from losses we have known;